Analysis Of Claude Mckay 's `` America `` Essay

Claude McKay is a brilliant poet, whose words illustrate the struggles of black communities in America. Some of his most popular poems are about a black man living in America. In fact, “America” is arguably one of his most influential poems, speaking about the duality of the United States through the eyes of a black man. Claude McKay was a skilled poet who used many literary techniques to convey his deep-rooted messages in his poems. He uses specific techniques such as a sonnet structure in “America.” In addition, McKay’s most powerful literary technique is his use of metaphors. This is most clearly seen when McKay personifies America as a dualistic woman. Throughout this essay, I will explain, in detail, “America” by Claude McKay by focusing on McKay’s history, his use of literary techniques, then, specifically his use of metaphors and personification. Claude McKay was originally from Jamaica, but eventually moved to America, where he was influential in the Harlem Renaissance. In the early 1920’s, McKay focused his poems on exemplifying a black man surviving and living in America. In the poem, “America,” McKay speaks about the harsh conditions, which the black community lived. In this era, the Jim Crowe Laws were still in effect, segregating everything based on color in America. Any black individual, whether they were wealthy or poor faced the hardships of still being considered a lower class. Claude McKay wrote his poems to illustrate these burdensome times for black…

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Claude McKay was an influential leader of the Harlem Renaissance who also advocated against the racism that African-Americans receive. He wrote many works for this cause, among them was the poem “America” inside of the text of his book Harlem Shadows. People have many different thoughts and beliefs about the poems. James R. Keller tries to give his analysis of "America" along with McKay’s other works. Keller explains this in his article titled as “ ‘A Chafing Savage, Down the Decent Street’: The…

Shaymeon Robertson
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If We Must Die By: Claude McKay
If We Must Die, by Claude McKay is a sonnet written during the Harlem Renaissance period; a period where there was a flowering of African-American literature and art, (1919- mid 1930s). Though the Harlem Renaissance period was a time of thriving people and culture in the African-American community, prejudice was still very much active; something…

Claude McKay & Dialectical Analysis
In Claude McKay’s, “Old England” and “Quashie to Buccra” McKay uses dialect as a way to give poems multiple meanings. What may be seen as a simplistic or naïve poem about Jamaican life may actually be full of double meanings that only a select audience would be able to identify. In his poem’s, McKay ultimately gives Negros who work under white colonists the underlying message of black resistance by revolution.
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Natasha Trethewey’s “Incident” and Claude McKay’s “The Lynching” are both written about hate crimes. “Incident” is the generational retelling of the author’s family that witnessed a cross burning on their lawn, as a warning, with unsettling images of the aftermath as well as hints of fear permanently embedded in the family’s memory. Each time it is retold, the experience becomes more dauntingly descriptive. “The Lynching” illustrates the picture of a grim and saddening sight of a malicious lynching…

The time of the Harlem Renaissance was also a very tumultuous time racially in America. In many cases black artists and scholars used their work to reflect on the climate in America and made it their mission to get involved and speak out against the racial injustices of the time. Claude Mckay’s poem “If We Must Die” outlines the feelings and tensions between blacks and whites during the early 20th century in America. The poem is a call for blacks to stand up and fight for their rights honorably…

Claude McKay’s poem “America”, expresses his feelings about the USA and describes he uses negative qualities about the country to fuel his own personal ambitions. Although McKay thinks America is great, he thinks that due to its ignorance, it is losing important factors to make it better. Mckay shows this through the use of symbolism of America 's qualities, the structural choice of a Shakespearean sonnet, and the shift of feeling in the last four lines of the poem.
The first line of “America” McKay…

according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, “the quality or state of being other or different” (Merriam-Webster, 2011). In reviewing the poem, “White House,” by Claude McKay, otherness is represented by his personal view of otherness and his struggle with being a small part of a large institution. In the following analysis you will see many representations of McKay’s belief in otherness. He believed that the working class was oppressed and otherness was unjustly forced upon them. They were…

feelings about the future through literature. In his poem, “The White House”, Claude McKay talks about adversity that he has faced trying to fit in the society while Langston Hughes, in his poem “I Too Sing America”, states that he feels that he is an American. While both poems talk about hardships that African Americans face, they contrast in authors’ views of African Americans in the society.
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fine line where love and hate meet is a blurry one. The central theme of Claud McKay’s poem “America” is the contrast of how love and hate, in a deeper perception of reality, represent the same emotion. Love and hate, despite having different denotative meanings, convey similar emotional burdens on a person who is experiencing either one.
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is dreadful, knowing the chance of succeeding is not in your book. Our pride is what makes us human to address any challenge head on regarding what the outcome. That similar to the poem “If We Must Die “by Claude McKay a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem that has a similar to Shakespeare 's poem with the rhyme scheme is the typical (ABABCDCDEFEFGG).
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